


Sleep Deprivation

by 796116311389



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Character Death, Depending on your perspective, Dubious Consent, Frottage, Horror, Hubris, Infection, Love Confessions, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sort Of, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon 2018, Technically a sick fic, fungus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 08:44:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16260698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/796116311389/pseuds/796116311389
Summary: He should never have answered his phone.He always texted.If only he had ignored Molly Hooper's call then maybe none of this would have happened.





	Sleep Deprivation

**Author's Note:**

> HOLY SHIT HEED MY TAGS.  
> MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. BOTH SHERLOCK AND JOHN DIE. 
> 
> This is my horror entry for Spook Me ficathon 2018.
> 
> I picked plant as my prompt and got a picture of a plant man. So I decided to make a fic based on this neat little fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. It's a fungus which takes ants as hosts for its reproductive cycle turning them into zombie ants to do the bidding of the fungus.
> 
> Back in April scientists realized that the fungus only grows to seize the ants body but doesn't infect the ant's brain. They theorize that the ant is aware that it's infected (as much as an ant is self aware) but can't do anything except watch in horror as the fungus controls it's body. 
> 
> So here you go. Hubristic Sherlock fucking up big league.
> 
> Link to the Wikipedia page for the fungus:  
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

He should never have answered his phone.

He always texted.

If only he had ignored Molly Hooper's call then maybe none of this would have happened.

* * *

ATTACK

He looks through the glass of the observation theatre.

The body is grotesque and he immediately understands why Molly would have thought he'd be fascinated. It's unlike anything he's ever seen.

It is a man in his 40s, fairly fit, but not someone who works out regularly. His profession keeps him trim. 

The body is face down and the back exposed. That's where the things burst out of him.

Four pod like things with splits down their middles and cracked open like ripe melons are sitting on the end of twisted black stalks, thick like branches. Each is sticking straight out of the man's back from different areas in various heights. To Sherlock's eye there appears to be no pattern to where they've erupted from the pale flesh. 

Clearly something was in the pods. They're empty now.

He looks down at the file from Molly. The man's name is irrelevant.

Found in his bed by his wife after she came home from a weeklong business trip. He had stopped answering her calls two days prior. 

Molly told him he wasn't allowed to collect any samples. 

If she really didn't want him to take any samples though then she wouldn't have left him alone in the viewing room. 

It's like an invitation really. 

Sherlock's curiosity consumes him.

* * *

DECAY

It's some type of fungus. 

Sherlock sits at his stool in the kitchen wearing pajamas and a house robe. 

The samples he stole from the body are on the table in petri dishes and they're _fascinating._

He adds water to one sample in an attempt to rehydrate it. It's moderately successful.

Then he tries to rehydrate the second sample with blood given that it had been in a human body. It's _extremely_ successful. 

The fungus in the blood was steadily growing to consume the inside of the petri dish. 

Sherlock takes notes, pleased with himself. 

Until he begins to realise something is wrong. 

_Very wrong._

His hand has begun shaking and he feels like he has worms crawling through his muscles. His bones ache and he's consumed with a terrible feeling. He feels as if the world is ending.

He realises he's standing, but he doesn't remember standing. Doesn't remember thinking he wanted to be standing. 

His hand drops his pencil. Sherlock thinks to pick it up, but his body ignores him. With a gripping panic he tries to will himself to do anything, but he's paralyzed, no longer in control. 

But something is. His body begins moving of its own accord to circle the table.

Sherlock's mind is panicking as he realizes what's happening. 

_He has been infected with the fungus._

* * *

SUSTAIN

His body is consumed with the fungus. It's a peculiar sensation, almost like when one's limbs fall asleep from inactivity. 

He can see his limbs moving, even feel them, but he is very distinctly _not_ in control of them. 

It does not affect his mind, and, true, he had sometimes wished to be just that, a mind, to remove the burdens of his transport. 

But not like this. 

This is a nightmare. 

He feels as the fungus controls his limbs and opens the fridge. It gorges itself on whatever food is in there, not bothering with utensils, but simply using his hands. Then it heads to the sink and begins drinking from the tap. Swallowing mouthful after mouthful of water until Sherlock feels his stomach distended in pain. It stops then and holds Sherlock's body perfectly still.

Sherlock is as fascinated as he is horrified. 

The fungus is...is _sustaining him._

But for what purpose? Why go through the trouble of taking over a host's body, but not it's mind? 

It needs his body for a reason then. But what reason? Clearly not to usurp his life. Not like one of those ridiculous Pod Peoples from the movie he saw as a child (and was secretly horrified by).

What does he know of the fungus?

It's quick to infect and take over it's subject, suggesting a short life cycle. 

He thinks to the mangled body of the man that started all this. His body found in his bedroom. Pods upon stalks bursting from his back. 

In a rush the answer hits him and he's sure he would be sick if he had any control over his body. 

A fungus with a short life cycle that only takes over the hosts body. It needs to replicate and infect another host to keep going. 

_To survive._

It's ensuring the host is fed and watered so it has the calories and hydration to sustain itself until it can successfully grow and burst from the hosts body and infect others.

He feels like he's missing something. 

Something crucial. 

His body begins moving again and heads to his bedroom. It lies them on the bed, face up. 

It's waiting.

But for what?

* * *

RELEASE

Sherlock hears the sound of the ground floor door closing and realizes with a shock, so absorbed with his situation, that he has no way of warning John. 

Of telling John to stay away. To leave.

To run.

Sherlock knows with a startling clarity as John comes up the steps that he will be the end of John Watson. 

The fungus moves his body and stands them up. It divests them of the clothes they're wearing and struts out of Sherlock's bedroom naked.

John is in the kitchen, humming, putting away groceries. 

The fungus enters them into the kitchen. John turns to greet them.

"Jesus, Sherlock!" John lifts his face upward to avoid looking at Sherlock's naked body. "How many times have I told you not to walk about the flat bloody starkers?!" John turns back around and continues unloading the shopping from its bags. "One of these days you're going to give Mrs. Hudson an eyeful and then you'll regret not wearing clothes. Probably compare you to the late Mr. Hudson."

The fungus comes up behind John and uses Sherlock's hands to turn John around to face them. 

Sherlock is screaming in his mind for John to run, but nothing comes out of his mouth. 

"Wha- Sherlock?" John looks a bit like cornered prey. It's as if instinctively he understands that Sherlock is not himself. "Are you okay?"

They kiss John. 

And John is wholly lost. 

Sherlock can see and feel John give in. He does not fight.

It is a night of revelations as Sherlock sees the data rolling off of John. Deductions he previously chose not to make. 

John _wants_ him.

John _loves_ him.

And this is cruelty. 

To the both of them. 

This twisted thing inside Sherlock which consumes him and steals his agency, forces him to act in ways he would never under his rational control. 

His love will be the death of them. 

The fungus pulls John to Sherlock's bedroom and puts him on the bed. It climbs over John and keeps kissing him. Sherlock notes that they've lain with their heads at the foot of the bed. It allows him to catch glimpses of them in his dresser mirror. 

He looks wrecked already, his body flush and his tumescent penis incessantly grinding into John's body beneath them. 

He can feel every movement. His tongue in John's mouth, the coarse friction of John's jeans, and the steel of John's muscles where Sherlock's hands pin his arms. 

John looks up at Sherlock with half lidded eyes. "Ok, wow. I'm down for this, but, uh, maybe we should talk about this first?" John continues to look up at Sherlock while Sherlock's body continues to press into John's. 

It presses into John's groin and Sherlock can feel John straining even through the stiff fabric of his jeans. 

John gives a low moan, "Or not. I guess we can, _mmmm_ , talk about it after. _God, Sherlock._ "

Sherlock's mind is becoming foggy with pleasure, but he still feels a sick dread within himself because he knows this is the end. 

If he could cry he probably would. 

He does not want this. 

He does not want this for John. 

John squirms beneath him and the fungus reluctantly let's him go. Sherlock feels a brief moment of hope that John has realized he needs to escape and is running, but instead watches in horror, trapped in his body, as John strips himself beneath Sherlock. 

It's an electric shock to feel John's naked skin beneath his. 

The fungus ruts them together faster. Sherlock can feel a pleasure coiling low in his belly and a tightening in his groin. The fungus simply seems intent to reach orgasm as quickly as possible. 

John reaches out and grasps Sherlock's behind pushing them harder together. 

They are rutting together hard now and Sherlock can feel his orgasm about to be imminent. 

"Oh my God, Sherlock." John is groaning and apparently John is reaching his climax just as quickly as Sherlock. John shudders beneath them and Sherlock feels a warmth between them, but he cannot look down to see. 

The fungus is aiming their gaze right at John's face and Sherlock watches as John smiles lazily up at Sherlock, encouraging him. 

Sherlock orgasms.

Sherlock watches as John's expression changes to shock.

Sherlock watches as blood splatters onto John's face and begins oozing in a thick foam from John's mouth. 

Sherlock's body arches and he can see in the dresser mirror. 

Thick black twisted stalks, roots, have burst from his chest and body into John's beneath him. Have consumed John, pressing him into a final death embrace with Sherlock. 

Sherlock's vision dims as he feels something come from his back.

He watches as thin, flat red stalks come from his back and twist together into a blood red fungal flower. They seem to pulse, erupting with a fine red powder which coats his room. He takes in the falling dust and focuses back on John beneath.

On the roots twisting through John and over the bed.

Sherlock's body goes limp as the fungus has finished with him. 

His vision goes black.

The last thing he sees is John Watson's face.

'I'm sorry I loved you.' is the last thing he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it all the way through, thank you for your bravery. I personally avoid character death fics like the plague so big shock to me to have written it.
> 
> The song that also partially inspired this fic is Sleep Deprivation by Simian Mobile Disco. It has a this sound to it that just is the fic. The curious almost hopeful note with an undercurrent melody which is unsettling. The keys are in an off major. The driving beat which gets more insistent and loud. More dangerous and driving. Until it ends.
> 
> Basically you can read the fic and clearly tell where each part of the story fits into the song.


End file.
